The Lightstep

by John Dickinson

  Anna Poppenstahl was sitting by herself against the wall, 'with a drawn look on her face. Anyone who saw her, thought Maria, would know at once that it had taken something more than a flick of Mother's fingers to have the passport delivered anonymously to their door. (Why had she ever allowed poor Anna to be involved in this?) But no one seemed to notice. Mother was convinced that, whatever Anna and Maria had done, and whoever they had gone to, the precious passport had come entirely because she herself had said that it should. And her conviction was so strong that it carried the room – Canon Rother included. They fawned on her in her triumph.

  'The master-stroke was to find the Frenchman at all,' said the Baron von und zu Löhm. 'Who would have thought it possible?'

  'Baron, you know I have looked for understanding all my life. And it is to be found in the most unexpected places. It was obvious to me that lies were being told about Hersheim. To confront lies, you need witnesses. I simply asked myself, if all our officers were suborned, where else might a witness be found? And now he will come to Erzberg, whatever His Highness's creatures think.'

  'You have routed them all, my Lady.'

  'I knew that I would.'

  'I am agog to see him,' said the Knight von Uhnen, rejoining the central group. 'A genuine revolutionary! Is it true that he addressed you as "Citizen", my Lady? Will he parade up the Saint Simeon in a liberty cap and bare feet, do you think?'

  'I judge him to be as gallant a gentleman as his station allows,' said Lady Adelsheim. 'And that when we are more acquainted with him we will all see how great a folly this war has been.'

  'Indeed, indeed,' murmured the gallant gentlemen in the room, every one of whom, Maria thought, had fled like startled pigeons each time Captain Lanard and his comrades had marched east from the Rhine.

  Karl von Uhnen managed to prise himself free from two of the ladies, who had been quizzing him on his dress, and made his way over to Maria's settee.

  'I am delighted to see you, sir,' he said, taking Father's hand. 'I hope it is well with you.'

  Father said something indistinct, but again he did not look up. Maria spied a dribble from his mouth cutting a track through the powder on his chin. She leaned across and patted it dry with a handkerchief, trying to disguise the damage.

  'Lady Maria?' said Karl von Uhnen to her, with a slight bow.

  'Of course,' she said, and gave him her hand.

  He settled himself on a stool on her other side.

  There was the slightest awkwardness in his manner. Apart from greetings exchanged in passing, and his formal condolences for Albrecht's death, they had barely spoken in a year. The memory of that awful scene in the orangery at Effenpanz still lingered between them. 'Sir, you force me to remind you of certain facts . . .'

  Nevertheless she had been hoping that he would come, and not only because he could be pleasant company when circumstances were right. There was a further reason why she needed him this evening.

  'I admire your suit, sir,' she said, falling into the light, teasing tones of mannered conversation. 'Did you don it to attract some poor woman's attention?'

  'If I must be a rebel, I shall be one in my own way. But really, it is very comfortable. I think I shall dispense with this queue, and let my hair fall to the collar like a true revolutionary.'

  'You should! You would be a sensation. And it will give the town something to talk about, other than sickening itself with war and politics.'

  'Indeed. Although I suspect this company has stomach to sicken itself some more.' He was looking around the room. Löhm, Jenz-Hohenwitz, Machting-Altstein-Borckstein – almost every notable present was identified with the peace party in Erzberg. There was not one senior officer, not one escapee from the occupied territories, nor was there anyone remotely connected with the Ingolstadt set. Two groups had formed, one speaking in low voices around Canon Rother, a few feet away. Another surrounded Mother on the far side of the room.

  'Kant?' exclaimed Mother. 'I am most disappointed. A man with many gifts, but his perceptions are too narrow. No, sir. I have read his writings eagerly, following like a disciple wherever he led. I have declared his critiques to be genius. I have even tutored my own daughter in them. And then what? I find he would discourage the interest of women in things of the mind! It is base treachery, sir, and you cannot defend him!'

  'On the contrary,' cried a jovial voice. 'I shall now defend him with my life!'

  'What, sir? This, in my house?'

  'My Lady. If we men are not to have the exclusive advantage of education, however would we remain your equal?'

  'Aha! Ha-ha!' cried other men around the pair.

  '. . . Erzberg to suffer as Frankfurt and Mainz suffered,' Canon Rother was saying. 'Bombardment! Can you imagine? Only perhaps for us it would be worse.'

  'It must be avoided.' said someone else. 'It is madness to put one spoiled godchild above the wellbeing of a city . . .'

  Karl von Uhnen bent to whisper in her ear. 'A very distinct gathering,' he breathed. 'I wonder that even we were included.'

  'I believe my mother feels you are kindred spirits, or should be.'

  He shrugged. 'Maybe, maybe not. Father is a strange old dog. I don't think he'll sit up to beg for anyone. I had thought we were to hear music, not talk politics.'

  'You shall certainly hear music, sir. Mother has obtained a new quartet by Haydn, which Meister Holz and his fellows will perform for us after dinner.'

  'But this is excellent! A new Haydn, did you say?'

  'I understand it has not been performed in Erzberg before this.

  However, I am sure there will be politics too. I believe Löhm in particular has some notions he wishes to introduce to the gentlemen.'

  'Oh Merciful Muses!'

  '. . . Let me enter the lists on education,' cried Baron Löhm. 'Atque inter silvas Academi quaerere verum. Education, I hold, should promote virtue over vice everywhere. It must be our goal to replace the politics of self-interest and self-advancement with Education. And there is no better education than the personal instruction of those who are themselves men of virtue. I say "men" of virtue, my Lady,' he added, bowing. 'But for example only. Of course the same could be achieved among women, if any could be found to follow your lead. And maybe you have already begun, with your daughter and others?'

  'Quite, Baron,' said Mother dryly. 'But perhaps this is the moment for you to introduce your guest more widely.'

  'Gentlemen – and ladies,' said the Baron. 'This is Doctor Heinrich Sorge, who is secretary of the "Heribert" Reading Club in Nuremberg. He is a man of great understanding. I have had the benefit of a long correspondence with him over the years, and I know of no better mind in Germany – save yours, my Lady,' he added as an afterthought.

  Doctor Sorge was a small man, almost a twin of the Baron for height. But whereas the Baron, in his white wig and dark embroidered velvet, looked almost as round as he was tall, Sorge was thin in face and mouth and body. His suit was plain brown, such as a merchant or university professor might wear to Holy Mass on a Sunday. He shifted a little and pursed his lips while all the company stared at him.

  'Doctor Sorge has come to educate us,' said Lady Adelsheim. 'He has a very special understanding of worldly government.'

  'My Lady,' said Sorge, in clipped tones. 'I did explain to the Baron that the size of the company would limit what I might be able to reveal . . .'

  'Of course. But you should have no fear of us. Dietrich – the doors.'

  The house servants flung open the double doors that led into the next room. Chairs were arranged in a rough circle before the hearth there.

  'If the gentlemen would follow me,' said Canon Rother.

  Every man in the room, except for Maria's father and the younger Uhnen, trooped through. Maria noticed that Doctor Sorge hung to the rear of the group, and she was close enough to hear him say to the Baron, 'It would be better if the servants are not admitted.'

  'As well part cripples from their sticks,' murmured the Baron. 'B
ut this house is safe, do not worry.'

  'Who was that curious fellow?' said Karl von Uhnen, who had kept his seat despite the invitation.

  'A doctor from Nuremberg, I believe,' said Maria offhandedly. She had her own guesses about the sort of man that Löhm might wish to introduce to his friends. The Baron was notorious for his dabblings in freemasonry and other such societies. But she knew, too, that in Erzberg it was best not to let the tongue wag too much about such things. 'I expect he has some very wise ideas to propose. Will you not join them?'

  'I don't think I shall,' said Karl von Uhnen, after a show of indecision. 'It's certain to be dull. What was that about cripples indeed? Hasn't Löhm as many servants as any of us?'

  'His heart may lean after his words,' said Maria with a smile. 'But indeed it is far ahead of his habits. Now you must forgive me.'

  She rose to her feet, for now she was hostess to those who remained.

  Three women were left in the room – wives who had accompanied their husbands to the gathering. Maria approached and respectfully suggested a table of cards.

  'Why,' cried the Lady Jenz-Hohenwitz, looking sharply around. 'Is Lady Adelsheim not to be with us?'

  'She will return in a very short time, I am sure,' said Maria, with the most charming smile she could contrive. Of course Mother had slipped out to join the men in their discussions, and would neither rejoin the ladies nor care what they thought of it.

  'Well! I think it is very bad of her!'

  'Oh come, my dear,' said Lady Machting-Altstein-Borckstein, sallying to the rescue. 'We all know our dear Constanze. Let us not embarrass the poor girl. Cards would be very pleasant, I believe.'

  Lady Jenz declared once again that it was very bad. Nevertheless she allowed herself to be manoeuvred to a card table, with an ill grace. She must have suspected all along that her hostess would abandon her that evening. No doubt she would have liked to break with convention herself, but she knew – and perhaps this was what truly rankled with her – that she had neither the wit nor the character to imitate Lady Adelsheim without seeming ridiculous.

  To be truly free, Maria thought, one must free oneself early, and live so ever after. There was no hope now for Lady Jenz, who had ambled placidly within the hedges of convention all her life.

  Maria should have taken the fourth hand herself. It would have been proper. But instead she summoned Anna to the table with her eyes, and partnered her with the good-humoured Lady Machting. Father was still on the settee, Karl von Uhnen on the stool, and the space that she had abandoned lay between them. When she looked more closely she realized that Father was asleep. So for the moment she was indeed free – at least within the confines of the drawing room. She could entertain herself as she chose. And she chose her entertainment with a purpose.

  Karl was craning round at the double doors. He must be wondering what was brewing in there. He looked back and raised an eyebrow at her.

  'Perhaps you, too, would enjoy a hand of cards, sir?' she asked.

  'Gladly,' he said.

  'We are watching, you two love-birds,' said Lady Machting, from her seat at the card table. 'You must behave yourselves!'

  Karl frowned. Maria smiled. She meant her smile as a challenge. She did not want Karl to follow the other men. He could be pleasant company for her. But better still, he had a convenient habit of playing for high stakes.

  She signed to Dietrich for another table and pack. They came, with the automatic efficiency of a cripple's stick clicking into place to support another stride. She settled to her place.

  'A gulden to a point?' she suggested.

  'That makes it worth the play' he agreed.

  The room had fallen quiet. Beyond the double doors a voice was speaking, but in tones so low that there was no hope of hearing what was said. Cards were already flicking to and fro on the other table. She returned her attention to the young man opposite her. She would start by shocking him a little.

  'I am to go to Mainz next week,' she said.

  'Are you!'

  'Indeed. And beyond it into the occupied territory Anna is visiting her cousins there.'

  She had allowed Mother to exult over the passport for an hour. Then she had sent Anna in to see her, equipped with the latest letter from the Jürichs. In less than five minutes Lady Adelsheim had given her consent. House servants who had scurried to prepare these rooms today, would be scurrying to engage a coach, horses, additional trunks and travelling gear tomorrow.

  Provided that there was money. Not even in her triumph had Mother slackened her grip on the purse. Funds for the journey must come from Anna's and Maria's allowances. These were not adequate, whatever Mother might think. And Maria knew that if she went begging to Mother for money now she would only risk having the precious consent withdrawn again. There would have to be another way.

  A gulden a point . . .

  She must not think about losing.

  'This is – most adventurous!'

  'I own that I am more nervous than I expected.'

  'I must say that I wonder whether it is wise.'

  She looked at him sharply.

  He shrugged. 'Oh! No, I meant only that the Emperor has not yet concluded his peace with France. The fate of the Rhineland is not yet clear. Anything may yet happen.'

  'That is no concern of ours,' she said firmly.

  'Mainz . . . From all I have heard, I am glad I had no part in that affair.'

  Affair? thought Maria.

  Oh, he meant the siege. Why was everyone so obsessed with sieges at the moment? Come, Karl. You should pay attention to me, now, since I have been so good as to put myself in your way for the evening!

  His eyes had swung to the window. From the street below came the sounds of a cart passing. Voices called cheerfully, with words that did not quite carry. The sounds reminded Maria how many people there were in the houses around her. And beyond this street there were a hundred others in Erzberg, where people passed and called and dined in their houses while the dusk grew outside: people, people all around them, and every one of them striving, like her, to love, laugh, live and be a little bit free. And still Karl stared at the window, as if he thought to see a cannonball crashing inward in a cloud of dust and plaster.

  And rumours thickened around the presence of d'Erles and the other émigrés. The men talked of sieges. Mother's criticism of the Prince just now had been far louder and sharper than ever before. Then they all retreated to inner rooms and spoke behind closed doors.

  She suppressed her thoughts, and waited.

  At last Karl looked back, and with a smile he said, 'Nevertheless, a siege may be instructive.'

  'How so?'

  'Why, it shows that if you are persistent in the pursuit of your objective, in the end you may be met with surrender.' And he smiled more broadly at her.

  (So, he was bold now! But this was better than gloom. She had business to do here. And she would use every advantage she could to get what she needed.)

  'Surrender?' she responded, lingering on the word. 'Why do you insist upon surrender? Will you not treat with your foe upon even terms?'

  'That depends on whether the objective may be so obtained. But the greater the prize, the greater you must expect the struggle to be. I think of Troy, with the beautiful Helen as the reward . . .'

  'I believe it is your lead, sir,' she said brightly.

  A gulden a point was enough to keep their minds on the play. But while he was reckoning the score she teased him by looking away across the room, allowing him to throw glance after glance at her in a vain effort to catch her eye.

  He held out the cards to her. His fingers lay upon them in such a way that she might, if she wished, brush them with hers as she took the pack from him. And she looked at them for a moment, with her head cocked on one side, and then carefully took them without touching him, but with an air that said that next time, perhaps, she might choose to do so.

  She dealt. She gathered her cards and studied them. It was a difficult han
d.

  There was nothing she could discard without risk. And yet she must discard. The diamonds were the least likely to help her. They must go. After that, what?

  Resolutely she threw away her hearts and drew five more cards. Her hand was a cloud of the black suits. Very well.

  'I have a point of six,' she said.

  'Good,' came the reply.

  Nothing else was good. Not her tierce, not her three queens. Both were overpowered by his hand. Then, when it came to the tricks, she made only her six clubs and the ace of spades. After that his red suits swept her hand away. The score was nearly even, but she should have done better. Now it was his turn to have the advantage.

  'My heart suit conquered,' he said. 'I am encouraged.'

  'You should not be,' she murmured.

  'If a man's hearts are true in his hand, then perhaps the heart in his breast is true also. I wonder if it is the same with a woman. Or do they always prefer the diamonds?'

  She frowned.

  'Sir, my suits were black,' she said.

  'But they will not be so forever.'

  'Sir,' she said, quite sharply. 'I shall play as I wish.'

  And cut, and deal. And declare, play, and then there would be more banter. Card-play was like a dance. It had the same inevitability. Both went through prescribed figures, turn in, turn out . . . Who was it who had said to her that a dance was like a courtship? It was apt. Although she remembered that the dance they had been speaking of was the Lightstep. In the Lightstep there was no partner, only a candle – an undisclosed hope in the hand. Now she remembered who it had been: Michel Wéry.

  Something in her heart kicked at the thought.

  Something kicked, and she saw that she was in chains. She might dream of travels, or of handsome young men. She might even dream, as suddenly she longed to, of someone low-born, unpolished and deadly, who dealt in secret things and would deal with her. Yet after every night's dreaming she would wake to find herself the possession of a fine house, able to come and go only at the behest of others, and destined to be wed to poor, pathetic cousin Julius. She might win little victories in her drawing room, but she was no more free to move outside it than a dancer was free to alter the dance.